The American Patriot Conference split into two after the 2012-13 season. The old conference renamed itself the Patriot League (again) and the new conference becomes the American Athletic Conference (again) meaning one less at-large bid for the NCAAs this upcoming year, but that's okay.
The new conference has seven core members are from the APC and added three new programs to fill out the league - Illinois State (MVC), Minnesota State (Summit) & UMass (A10). The league will be an all-sports conference.
So MNSU gets a promotion out of the moribund Summit League where we were forever doomed to be a double-digit seed and join a conference with a national footprint. Remains to be seen whether the league has the staying power to be among the top conferences in the country, though.
Code:
AAC NCAA TOURNAMENT APPEARANCES
# Team Apps W L Pct Sweet 16 Elite 8 F4 Champs
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1 Houston 26 30 25 .545 7 4 2 1
2 Illinois State 22 20 22 .476 7 2 1 0
3 Tulsa 17 8 17 .320 1 0 0 0
4 UCF 13 6 13 .316 1 1 0 0
5 South Florida 8 4 8 .333 1 1 0 0
6 Minnesota State 3 4 3 .571 1 1 1 0
7 Massachusetts 3 1 3 .250 0 0 0 0
8 Army 2 0 2 .000 0 0 0 0
9 East Carolina 2 1 2 .333 0 0 0 0
10 Navy 1 0 1 .000 0 0 0 0